PROUDLY CANADIAN

“If you can wear it inside out, you have done a good enough job”

Over 26 years my work has primarily focused on competitive dance, baton, skating, and fitness. I have designed and showcased award-winning costumes on Canadian as well as International stages. With a background in dressmaking as well as fashion, I have a keen eye for design. I am highly detailed oriented and strive to create a well-fitted costume. My desire is to have my customers feeling as if what I have created is an extension of their performance.

Becoming a designer was not a career that I chose; it was one that chose me. With a deep running history of tailors, and dressmakers it flows strongly through my veins.Sewing and design have always been a second nature to me, and as I grew I developed and honed my craft to what is has become today.

I have had a needle and thread in my hands since I was 5. When my grandmother guided me through that first project, her words to me were:“If you can wear it inside out, you have done a good enough job”. Those words have been with me for more than 45 years (keeping her a part of my thoughts each day). The skills she taught me have been more about the life lessons I learned than the actual needlework. What I learned was pride, patience, and compassion somewhere between a tatting-bobbin and how to cut out a dress with hardly any waste.

I have always considered it a gift, not to be taken for granted. It has put me through school and given me the opportunity to help support my family while being able to work from home. I have always looked for ways to share my gift with others from teaching a classroom of women how to work with knits to showing a 5-year-old how to sew a button nose on a bear.

Sewing has been a solace for me over the years. It had been part of my greatest joys (my daughter’s wedding dress) to my deepest sorrows (teddy bears for children losing their battle with cancer). I can’t imagine not sharing it through my work or knowledge each day.